This Twisted Love
by writeforlove
Summary: There were tears in the bride’s eyes, but not for the conventional reasons... she was crying to keep the hysteria at bay, she was crying so she wouldn't run back up the aisle... Written as a Dasey, but ambigious enough that it could be someone else


_**This Twisted Love**_

_There were tears in the bride's eyes, but not for the conventional reasons._

The groom was waiting at the end of the aisle, that short road to the future. He looked pale and she wondered briefly if he was likely to throw up. She suspected he might, and hoped he could refrain long enough to say the vows. But knowing him-

_She knew him so goddamn fucking well._

Knowing him, he'd find some way to disrupt the ceremony. And she welcomed it, for once. Anything to delay what had become inevitable. That which had once been a guilty pleasure day dream was on the brink of becoming a surreal reality she didn't want. She was going to be his wife… she was already his bride.

_She never should have been his anything at all._

They weren't supposed to be together, they were supposed to hate each other. She shouldn't be taking sedate steps in a long white dress down a petal-strewn path, and he certainly shouldn't have been the one waiting at the end, face solemn, eyes glassy. He looked a bit green around the edges, but he didn't look unhappy… but she never could trust appearances with him.

_They appeared to have everything._

If not the story book romance, then the soap-opera one. The forbidden fruit appeal of their first stolen moments together, the over the top scene when they'd been caught kissing in the janitor's closet at school, the absolute blow up when they'd been found in bed together a few weeks later. They'd stuck it out together, holding hands in hallways as a symbol of their defiance of social norms, compromising over what to watch on TV, enjoying their relationship, flaunting it when they'd finally won the right to have it.

_They'd been so goddamn fucking perfect._

In the end, everyone had come around. They're friends returned, shrugging sheepish shoulders, and they'd gained even more of a popular following at school. Their family survived, adjusted, moved on because blended families were just so goddamn fucking adjustable.

_And perfection had been sweet._

It had been all tongues clashing, breath catching, limbs tangling freedom. They'd taken advantage of the fact that they were the It couple, and the fact that it meant people expected to find them wrapped around each other at every available opportunity. They lived in each other's pockets, and in each other. At times they were so wrapped up it was hard to tell where they began and ended as individuals, but that had been okay, good even.

_But at the first internal hurdle, they'd stumbled._

There was crying and the taste of fear in her throat as they contemplated raising a kid before they were even grown themselves. There had been fighting like never before, a full return to their old antagonistic habits and then some. A week they'd strained and fought and twisted to evade the unavoidable, lashing out at each other because there was no other option. Then they'd reached breaking point.

_She'd really thought they would break up._

She'd been steeling herself all that long week, preparing to go it alone, indulging in the last passion filled throes of their romance, putting her all into their sparring. She'd held herself together by holding herself apart from him. It hurt, but she'd cut him out before he could do it to her, because she had known it was coming.

_But then he'd surprised her._

He'd come to her on bended knee, and, trembling, claimed to love her, kid or no kid. He wanted to spend his life with her, did she want the same?

_And she did love him…_

And this was really the only way to go, the logical option, the only way to survive what was to come. The only way to keep them together…so really, where was the choice?

_But then Life surprised her._

Turned out there was no kid, but now there were those words between them.

_love…kid or no kid… rest of my life… kid or no goddamn fucking kid_

And when she told him, he froze, took a deep breath, then nodded once. He went back to reading his comic, and she was scared for a minute to be so on her own. But then he took her hand, and she didn't feel so isolated, so she clung to it like a lifeline.

_She thought that it was a return to the Time Before._

But you can't go back, apparently. She had been perfectly willing to try, until he casually reminded her the next day that she and her mother were supposed to be picking out flowers. That threw her for a minute, but if he was going to act like nothing had really changed, then so would she. She would not be the one to back out of this commitment, no way. After all, this was a game she knew how to play.

_Only, apparently he wasn't bluffing._

Not unless he planned to goddamn fucking say 'I don't' when asked that all important question. She was glad he was going first, so she could base her answer on his. Because maybe this hadn't been a game of chicken but a dare… and she couldn't say no to a dare from him, not even this one.

_She won't crack._

Not before him, not this time. She's got the upper hand; he's such a commitment-phobic _guy_. She will win this, if only she can hang in there. But she's barely hanging on.

_She's crying a bit._

But it's a choice between that and absolute panic. She doesn't want to go into hysterics, not when she knows she can win, if she just holds on. All she has to do is put one goddamn foot in front of the fucking other… and again, and again and again….

_So she's walking down the aisle towards him._

And this has got to be the longest goddamn fucking aisle in recorded history, because she'd been walking down it for an eternity already and she's still not at the end of it. That would even be okay, since she isn't much excited to reach what's down there, but the thing is, she's barely hanging in. She doesn't know how much longer she can maintain the small smile she's managing, how much longer she can keep up the forward motion of her feet. If she doesn't reach the end soon-

_But here she is at the goddamn fucking end._

Actually, if it was only the end, she'd be all right. But it's not the end of anything except her last chance to turn tail and run. Now she's in it and the minister is speaking.

_Now she's actually hoping that this has been an elaborate prank._

She wants so much to look up at him and see the old cruel smirk, the one that reached his eyes when he aimed it at her. She wants him to yell 'gotcha' or 'boo' or even 'happy goddamn fucking birthday,' anything that will interrupt the flow of words from the minister's- hey, he stopped talking.

_So then, she does look up._

And she realises that she's missed her cue because the minister is looking at her strangely. But she doesn't really see that because _he's_ smirking at her.

_And it's what she wanted to see, but somehow the result is different than she thought._

There's no relief, like she thought there'd be, no reassuring realisation that it is all a game to him after all. No hint of anger and hurt at been so horribly ill used.

"_It's your line," he says, smirking like she's done something to amuse him. _

And just like that, she's totally back in the game. "Just giving you a chance to chicken out," she says, her eyes lighting up as she eyes him condescendingly.

_And it's twisted, but she thinks maybe she can do this if he keeps smirking at her that way. Because in that smirk is a challenge, and she could never say no to a challenge._


End file.
